Of course, the decision of the Constitutional Council is a bad blow for the whole of the left and for all the unions which, for three months, have been opposed to Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform. But Laurent Berger, the leader of the CFDT, knows it better than anyone, the validation of almost all of the law by the Elders and, in particular, the decline in the legal age of departure from 62 to 64, is , for him, a defeat a little more bitter than for the others. Because, much more than in the previous social conflicts of recent years, it has engaged in frontal opposition to the executive’s project. Because also, his method came up against the inflexibility of power. What to do when you want to be a social partner but the other party has no desire to establish a lasting relationship? What to do when, in the name of responsibility, we defend modes of action such as demonstrations but only strikes, defended by the most radical unions, are likely to make the executive back down? While he has tried several times to extract a gesture from the government allowing him to come out of the conflict with his head held high, Laurent Berger finds himself at an impasse on the evening of April 14.
Of course, he will keep up appearances so as not to give the impression of letting go of the inter-union overnight. Friday evening, he joined his comrades calling on the President of the Republic not to promulgate the text by May 1 and refusing the meeting next Tuesday, launched by the Elysée just two hours before the Sages render their decision. “We will not go, we will not enter into a political agenda. People’s lives are not a sequence,” he said on TF1 on the evening of the Constitutional Council’s decision. Already the previous days, he had asked Emmanuel Macron to respect a “period of decency” before resuming the date. He also, with other union representatives, suggested that the executive take advantage of the possibility it has of requesting a new deliberation in Parliament within fifteen days of the decision of the Constitutional Council.
Such a delay will allow Laurent Berger to march on May 1 with the other inter-union organizations, which hope that the Constitutional Council will validate the second version of the shared initiative referendum on May 3. And to show within his organization that he does not give in suddenly. No way for him to give the impression of giving in immediately to the presidential injunction when, for almost four months, the two men have been clashing, certainly, verbally but quite violently. The exchanges took a particularly sour turn at the end of March when Emmanuel Macron, live on TF1 and France 2, criticized the CFDT for not having proposed an alternative project to the pension reform, attracting a response made up of “denial” and “lie” on the part of Laurent Berger. A new skirmish took place during Emmanuel Macron’s trip to China on April 6. And the desire displayed by the Elysée to promulgate the text in the coming days, perhaps as early as this weekend, is not likely to appease people’s minds.
But the leader of the CFDT is without illusions. He knows that he will have to resume the discussions and that he will approach them from a position of weakness. He and the other members of his confederal leadership will have a good time explaining that the partial censorship of the Constitutional Council of the provisions in favor of the employment of seniors forces the government to make concessions, the text now being “unbalanced”. But even if the government, for the sake of appeasement, agrees to integrate some of their demands, it will not return to the central point of tension, the 64-year-olds.
However, Laurent Berger is at the head of an organization which claims its sense of responsibility and its legalism. On the evening of April 14, still on TF1, he let go about the decision of the Constitutional Council: “It is essential”. How could he, who has constantly criticized the “democratic crisis” triggered by the government, in turn enter into a criticism of a democratic process validated by the Constitutional Council? On April 11, he warned: “there will be no CFDT game consisting of saying “it’s disgusting, the Council is made up of so and so”. A few minutes later, when asked about the possibility of a promulgation of the law which would then not be applied, as was the case in 2006 for the first employment contract (CPE) also fought in the street, he had indicated that he did not believe “at all in the renewal of history”.
In recent days, he has also prepared people’s minds for a deceleration in the conflict. “It is clear that the CFDT will not hold demonstrations for six months”, he had dropped on the eve of the last day of mobilization on April 13, before recovering against those who had understood that it was the ” der des ders”: “the union fight is far from over”. But already, in his head, the latter was translated less into demonstrations that were increasingly difficult to fill in processions provided than in attempts to finally obtain concessions from the government.
Will the latter seize the opportunity to reintegrate Laurent Berger’s CFDT into the social game? “The will of the government is now to continue the consultation with the social partners to give more meaning to work, improve working conditions and achieve full employment”, launched, by press release, Elisabeth Borne shortly after the decision of the Council. constitutional. Unlike the CGT, which practiced it during social summits under François Hollande or in early 2019 after the yellow vests crisis, the CFDT does not usually practice the policy of the empty chair. Didn’t Laurent Berger take part in the National Council for Refoundation wanted by Emmanuel Macron when others refused? But this time, he needs a real gesture to renew the dialogue.
This gesture is all the more important as he said when he was re-elected head of the CFDT in Lyon in June 2022: after ten years as general secretary, he intends to step down mandate as François Chérèque did in 2012 with him. It does not matter whether the choice then falls on Yvan Ricordeau, national secretary in charge of training or on Marylise Léon, current deputy general secretary, the two candidates whose names come up the most, Laurent Berger will be keen to leave an organization in order market and at the heart of social democracy, after having placed it at the forefront of the unions ahead of the CGT. If he were to leave the sequence without the hope of a new impetus, the feeling of failure would be terrible for him. And the hangover more painful than ever. Laurent Berger is convinced, the moment will leave traces in the polls in the coming years.